Ancient Greek: Philosophy Age & Hellenistic Period (Part 2)
click here for Part 1 - http://peminggirkota.blogspot.com/2013/01/ancient-greek-philosophy-age.html
PHILOSOPHY: A BRIEF INTRODUCTORY
Philosophy begins when man starts to asking
and questioning the fundamentals which normally man taken for granted. Man
tries to understand the world through the use of reason. Their earliest
questions were “what is the world made of?” and “what holds the world up?”.
However, after the coming of Socrates, the most legendary figures and famous of
all Greek philosophers, who said that what matters most is “what we ought to
do?” or “how we ought to live?”,[1]
the study of philosophy rose to a new heights. The disciple and most loyal
student of him, Plato, whose written works have survived, spread Socratic-Platonic
philosophy and dominated the philosophical thought both in the East and the West
for centuries. Great pupil of Plato, Aristotle who was the tutor of Alexander
the Great, was the founder of peripatetic school who first mapped out sciences
and formulated logic.
First of all, what means
by philosophy? Basically, the word ‘philosophy’ is derived from the Greek words
philosophia (φιλοσοφία). It
comprises two words, ‘philos’ and ‘sophia’. ‘Philos’ means ‘loving’ while
‘sophia’ signifies ‘wisdom’ or ‘knowledge’.[2]
Thus, philosophy literally connotes love of wisdom. Technically, Jenny Teichmann
and Katherine C. Evans define: "Philosophy
is a study of problems which are ultimate, abstract and very general. These
problems are concerned with the nature of existence, knowledge, morality,
reason and human purpose.”[3] Meanwhile,
Bryan McGee illustrates philosophy as a quest which seeking a answer that could
illustrates altogether deeper understanding of the concept, trying to clarify
human’s mind on a subject that has important practical implications for us and
yet which bristles with difficulties. He further argues the concept of
philosophy as popularly mentioned by most of prolific writers and scholars of
philosophy: “a quest for rational understanding of the most fundamental kind
it raises important questions about the nature of understanding and hence of
inquiry and knowledge”.[4]
As
philosophy developed throughout the ages, evolving and splits into schools,
approaches and branches, it seems to be hard to get a universally agreed
definition of philosophy. Every philosopher has its own definition on it, based
on his own philosophical outlook. Nevertheless for us, the definition given by al-Kindi, who is known by scholars as the
First Philosopher of the Arab, or more precisely - Muslim, defines philosophy
as “the knowledge of things as they are in reality according to human
capacity, because the purpose of a philosopher in his knowledge is to reach the
true thing and in his work is to work on the true basis”.[5]
PRE-SOCRATIC ERA
Pre-Socratic philosophy is Greek philosophy before
Socrates around 6th and 5th centuries B.C. It also includes schools
contemporary with Socrates which was not influenced by him. They were also
known as the natural philosophers. Pre-Socratic philosophy is Greek philosophy
before Socrates (6th & 5th century BC). It also includes schools
contemporary with Socrates which was not influenced by him. The Pre-Socratic
philosophers lived and taught in Asia Minor, Thrace, Sicily and South Italy. These
philosophers asked questions about "the essence of things".[6] The
central question of the Pre-Socratic philosophy was: what is the nature of
cosmos? Based on this question, the Pre-Socratics explored the primary
substance of cosmos, as well as all those cosmic forces on which the universe
is founded.[7]
Others concentrated on defining problems and paradoxes that became the basis
for later mathematical, scientific and philosophic study. While most of them
produced significant works, none of the texts has survived in complete form.
All that is available are quotations by later philosophers and historians, and
the occasional textual fragment. Several schools of philosophy occurred during
that time. Socrates grew up in the atmosphere of the Pre-Socratic thought and
explored their knowledge and wisdom. Socrates gave philosophy for the first
time an anthropocentric character. The absence of this element in previous
thought is the main reason why the adjective 'Pre-Socratic' is attributed to
the philosophers before Socrates. Among them were Milesian or Ionian, Pythagoreanism, Heraclitus school, Elaitics school, Pluralistic school,
Atomism School and the Sophists.
The Ionian/ Milesian School
The first group of Pre-Socratic philosophers were from
Ionia. They live in the Ionian City of Miletus in the 7th and 6th
centuries B.C. In the 6th century B.C, Thales and Anaximander
launched at Miletus the conscious speculation about the nature of the universe
which shows that the crucial boundary between myth and science has been
crossed. The Ionian philosophers sought the material principle of things, and
the mode of their origin and disappearance. The Ionian School of philosopher
made good use of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians knowledge and
discoveries on natural phenomenon. Thales is said to have held that the earth
has it origin from water while Anaximander said “earth is held up by
nothing, but remain stationary.. Its shape.. Is like a drum” and Anaximenes
insisted that earth is flat is a self-evident [8]
The Pythagorianism
Established by Pythagoras of Samos (582-496 BCE). He
considered the world as perfect harmony, dependent on number, he aimed at
inducing humankind likewise to lead a harmonious life. Perhaps, he was the
first who introduced the idea of square and cube in number, applying geometrical
concepts to arithmetic. Also, he applied the word ‘cosmos’ to the universe.[9]
Heraclitus School
Heraclitus of Ephesus who was also known as The
Riddler was the one who started rejecting the Pythagorean ideal of harmony as
peaceful coexistence. For Heraclitus, he saw the natural world as an
environment of perpetual struggle and strife. He was reported to have said "All
is flux," he supposed; everything is changing all the time as
Heraclitus is often repeated, "Upon those who step into the same river,
different waters flow." The tension and conflict which govern
everything in our experience are moderated only by the operation of a universal
principle of proportionality in all things.[10]
Eleatics School
Against the position of Heraclitus, the Eleatics
defended the unity and stability of the universe. Their leader, Parmenides supposed
that language embodies logic of perfect immutability: "What is, is."
Since everything is what it is and not something else, he argued in “it can
never correct to say that one and the same thing both has and does not have
some feature, so the supposed change from having the feature to not having it
is utterly impossible.” “Of course, change does seem to occur, so we
must distinguish sharply between the many mere appearances that are part of our
experience and the one true reality that is discernible only by intellect.”[11]
Pluralistic School
Empedocles introduced the plurality from the very
beginning. Everything in the world, he supposed, is ultimately made up of some
mixture of the four elements: Earth, water, air, fire - considered as
irreducible components. The unique character of each item depends solely upon
the special balance of the four that is present only in it.[12]
Atomism School
It was developed by Leucippus and Democritus. For the
atomists, all substance is material and the true elements of the natural world
are the tiny, indivisible, unobservable solid bodies called "atoms."
Everything that happens in the world, the atomists supposed, is a result of
microscopic collisions among atoms. Thus, as Epicurus would later make clear,
the actions and passions of human life are also inevitable consequences of
material motions. Ancient atomism was merely another fashionable form of
cosmological speculation.[13]
[2] Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=philosophy&searchmode=none.
See also Henry George Liddell Robert Scott (1940) A Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
[3] Jenny Teichmann, Katherine C. Evans (1999), Philosophy: A
Beginner's Guide, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing , p. 1
[5] Dr. Ragheb Elsergany, “Muslim Scholars’ Contributions to
Development of Philosophy”, Islam Story, http://en.islamstory.com/muslim-scholars%E2%80%99-contributions-to-development-of-philosophy.html#_ftn2
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy
[7] http://www.philosophy.gr/presocratics/index.htm
[8] J.M Roberts (1987), The
Hutchinson History of The World, London: Century Hutchinson Ltd, pp.
235-236
[9] Ibid.
[10] Robin Sowerby (1995), The
Greeks; An Introduction to Their Culture, New York: Routledge, p. 118
[11] http://www.philosophy.gr/presocratics/index.htm
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
to be continued - Part 3